ABOUT

Collect Pond, 2026
New Museum, New York

Site-responsive spatial and olfactory installation
Cast composite incorporating locally sourced materials, galvanized steel, and natural olfactory composition. 2 × 4 × 6 ft.

Developed through ecological, historical, and material research into the former Collect Pond, the installation uses scent as a spatial medium through which Lower Manhattan’s suppressed hydrological history becomes perceptible. Its cast composite incorporates locally sourced materials, while the olfactory composition draws from the site’s freshwater ecology, industrial contamination, buried ground, and contemporary urban conditions.

Concealed scent reservoirs are embedded within cavities throughout the stratified structure. Rather than filling the room uniformly, the scent is encountered in localized concentrations as visitors approach, lean toward openings, and smell at close range. Olfaction directs bodily movement and attention, transforming the sculpture from an object observed at a distance into a field sensed through proximity.

Presented in the New Museum’s Sky Room overlooking Lower Manhattan, Collect Pond redirects attention from the city’s visible surface toward what continues beneath it.